Down On The Plantation

by digby

I’m glad to see that CNN has booked two African-Americans agreeing that Hillary Clinton was wrong to compare the Republican House to a plantation, so that’s good. The poncy Republican is calling for her to resign but the other thinks that probably isn’t necessary. We’re getting fair and balanced coverage on this issue.

Apparently, this is an outrageous thing to say. I wonder if anybody thought this article by Joseph Farrah of World Net Daily called “Racism on Dem plantation” (available today only on Google cache for some reason)was out of line. Or how about this one on on Townhall by Cal Thomas who refers to “the Democratic Party and its plantation mentality.” And then there’s Rush Limbaugh who’s been know to refer to anybody who’s in the leadership position in the Democratic Party” as “pimps” who attempt to deceive black people into remaining on the “Democratic plantation.”

Here’s the thing. When the Republicans talk about the “plantation” they are specifically talking about race, claiming that the Democrats are using (presumably stupid) Black Americans against their own interests.

Hillary was talking about the fact that the Republican leadership treats their own caucus (not to mention the minority) like they are slaves.

Now which of those views is racist?

Yet, the Republicans are all over this and they will probably end up getting her to apologise because Democratic politicians have never learned how to respond to being called racist. Until they do, the Republicans are going to use this ridiculous epistemic relativism against them.

Update: As a couple of commenters remind me, perhaps the most famous of these plantation comments cane from none other than Newtie:

“…on the eve of his great electoral victory ten years ago, the speaker-to-be told a reporter he was leading a “slave rebellion” against the Democrats who “run the plantation.”

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